Burl Burlingame says he was discussing this with our fellow high school classmate Gary Berliner, a physician in Georgia, and he shares:
Health care providers in some states prescribe far more painkillers than those in other states, according to a new government report.
Health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers in 2012 – many more in some states than in others – according to Vital Signs, the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that highlights the danger of overdose.
Health care providers in the highest prescribing state, Alabama, wrote almost three times as many of these prescriptions per person as those in the lowest prescribing state, Hawaii. Most of the highest prescribing states were in the South.
CDC said previous research has shown that regional variation in use of prescriptions cannot be explained by the underlying health status of the population…
Burl notes that Hawaii, where he and Gary and I graduated from high school and where Burl still lives, had the lowest number of such prescriptions. To that, I’ll say two things: Hawaii is easily the least painful place I ever lived, and 52-71 prescriptions per 100 people is nothing to write home about.
I thought that chart above contained a huge error at first: 95-143 prescriptions per 100 people in SC and the rest of the South? More prescriptions than people? Surely they meant per 1,000, or per 100,000. But then I saw that figure of 259 prescriptions, and realized yep, that’s one for almost every one of us.
Wow. I mean, I’m not the most stoic of men myself, but the only time I was ever prescribed oxycodone was after sinus surgery years ago. I’ve been prescribed hydrocodone for pain a couple of times in my life, such as after I broke four ribs kick-boxing in 2001. I took it for a month — I couldn’t have slept otherwise — and I found it unpleasant to quit (jangled nerves, irritability for several days). But I was very glad to say goodbye to it.
What are people taking all these pills for?
I was interested to see the Tennessee numbers. That’s where Dr. Nick prescribed so freely for Elvis. It’s also where, a few years later in Gibson County, we covered a case of a woman found dead with an astounding number of pill bottles around her. Fingers were pointed at a local physician who the whole town knew was an easy touch for drugs. Sometime before that, I had been sitting in General Sessions court, waiting for the arraignment of a murder suspect, listening to the disposition of several lesser cases, when a young woman was called to the stand to account for the drugs that had been found in her purse at a traffic stop. Percodan or some such.
“My doctor prescribed those for me,” the young woman protested.
“Your doctor is Dr. So-and-So, isn’t he?” asked the judge with a world-weary manner. Yes, he was. Everyone knew about him. (I remember his name but I’m not using it because the man’s dead, and I still remember with some sympathy the pain of his family when we mentioned the case in his obit.)
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Is this painkiller prescriptions in a lifetime, a year, a month?
It’s interesting that we take so many painkillers yet we can’t find it within ourselves to legalize Marijuana, even for medical purposes. In Colorado there is relatively little painkiller use. Same for California, a state that has had legal medicinal pot for a long time. It’s’ “high” time we legalized pot.
Right, bud. Legalizing pot should be a no brainer. .
That’s what I think — oh, wait: You meant “no-brainer” as in, “It makes sense.” Never mind. 🙂
But seriously, I’ll never go along with legalizing another carcinogen for people to poison the air I breath with.
THC drops for glaucoma, OK — if its efficacy can be firmly established. But smoking weed in public, or anywhere I might be? No, thanks.
Or stoned people driving on the roads I and my family use? No way.
Prohibition failed, so we’re stuck with thousands dying on the roads every year because of drunk drivers. We don’t need to add to the problem.
“More Colorado drivers in fatal crashes positive for pot, study says”
The study found that, in 2011, the proportion of drivers in fatal crashes in Colorado testing positive for marijuana had risen to 10 percent — up from 5.9 percent in early 2009. In states without medical marijuana laws, 4.1 percent of fatal-crash drivers tested positive in 2011 — almost identical to the numbers from early 2009.
Barry raises an important issue. But statistics like this may not mean what they show. What is most important is how safe the roads in Colorado are today compared to 2009 before Marijuana was legal. That year 465 people died on Colorado highway. Of those 158 were the result of alcohol impairment (1 or more drivers with a BAC of .08 or greater). Comparable numbers for 2012 were 472 and 133.
Any statistician worth his salt will tell you that in a vacuum these numbers don’t mean squat. What’s missing is a control state. We’ll use South Carolina or that purpose. 2009 numbers for the Palmetto state were 894 total/374 DUI. 2012 863/358.
Without going through all the math it would appear that Colorado is remaining roughly equal in both it’s overall and DUI traffic fatalities whereas SC has dropped slightly. Perhaps with some rigorous statistical analysis we could find a link back to the pot smoking but frankly these numbers are pretty comparable so the most likely explaination is simply random fluctuation.
What is crystal clear though is the overall difference in fatalities between the two states. With about 400,000 greater population Colorado has about 82% fewer traffic deaths. It is extremely doubtful that pot smoking is a major factor in traffic fatalities in either state. Alcohol is a much bigger problem.
Note the basic thrust of my objections. They speak to the great fallacy of libertarianism — the fantasy that what the individual chooses to do doesn’t affect other people…
Really? Are you suggesting that prohibition was a good idea?
If we could just ban cars, there would be no more auto accidents! And if we can ban swimming pools, fewer people will drown. Kill all dogs and we can eliminate dog bites.
Millions of people are smoking dope now… the impact on others is minimal at best. There are laws in place to handle people who make bad choices that impact others.
What business is it of yours if a terminally ill patient smokes some dope to alleviate pain? The person isn’t driving and isn’t invading your air space.
I am for medical pot use in limited circumstances. The abuse of such laws is high.
I don’t drink alcohol and don’t like being around people that are drinking- same would go for pot smokers/users.
“They speak to the great fallacy of libertarianism — the fantasy that what the individual chooses to do doesn’t affect other people…”
What we choose to ban also affects others. To tie this back into the situation on the border, our current drug prohibitions certainly contribute to the violence in Central America. Every policy decision has a cost and and benefit.
Legalizing drugs may certainly cause new problems to arise, but prohibiting drugs isn’t entirely free of negative consequences. In fact, one could argue that prohibiting drugs has higher negative consequences than legalizing them. You just have to make a decision about what consequences you are willing to live with.
Yes. What’s worse? X number of deaths related to stoned driving or Y number of deaths related to drug lords?
Just trying to understand
you are for legalizing heroin, and cocaine, etc ?
I am for legalizing pot and decriminalizing all other drugs. People who want to use drugs will, regardless of whether it is legal or illegal. Or they will find alternatives… like prescription drugs, alcohol, huffing paint, licking frogs,drinking hand sanitizer, eating mushrooms, etc. The problem isn’t the drugs, it’s the desire to use them to the point where it impacts the health of a person or others around them. Nobody should ever be placed in jail for that.
Our “war” on drugs hasn’t done any good. Got a lot of people killed, though. Burned through hundreds of billions of dollars… And ruined the lives of people who ended up in jail for using.
Let people do what they want to do and punish people severely when their behavior actually hurts someone else.
Do you recommend the government allow retail sales of cocaine?
Of course one problem with hard drugs is that abusers have to have the drug- and have it yesterday – or they act out in strong ways- often with guns and violence because of the addictive nature of the drug itself.
No, just pot. Hard drug users should not be put in prison, though. Not ever. Misdemeanor for possession, okay. Felony for selling it, fine.
Is pot smoke carcinogenic?
I think the studies on that are inconclusive. But then, this hasn’t been studied nearly as much as tobacco.
I’m making one of my intuitive leaps here. I ASSUME that deliberately, repeatedly drawing ANY kind of smoke into one’s lungs is damaging, and more likely to make you a candidate for lung cancer.
I could be wrong. But frankly, I think deliberately smoking anything is about as stupid as you can get…
Hey…I smoked a pork butt over the 4th of July weekend on my Weber grill, I don’t think doing that is carcinogenic, but I’m not sure. The meat was delicious, though.
A just God wouldn’t make BBQ give you cancer, would he?
Actually, smoked meat and red meat are both carcinogenic…..
Sigh…
I guess you gotta die of something.
Yeah, but what a way to go….
That depends. Is X greater than Y?
If Y > X then we should immediately legalize marijuana, right? Obama should sign an executive order.
That’s just one part of the equation.. you also have to measure the medicinal benefits of legal pot; the decreased cost of prosecuting and incarcerating drug users (money that could be spent on better things); and the general idea that people should be free to do what they want to do to their bodies
only if my health plan can refuse to cover people that show up at the hospital drunk with alcohol poisoning, stoned on pot, or high on coke and herion.
How about from the effects of addiction to prescription pain-killers?
Sounds good to me.
And no fat people… or extreme sport participants… or people who choose to live with abusive spouses.
Sounds good to me too.
I’d throw in energy drink abusers too.
I fall in with Bryan and Doug this time, Brad.
Suggesting that the solution for the “problem” of alcohol attempted during Prohibition era was somehow better than the problems that Prohibition caused doesn’t wash in my book.
While I grant that legalizing recreational use of pot would undoubtedly generate some new and undesirable situations (that I’m willing to confront), its continued prohibition is generating far more undesirable outcomes (lost tax revenues, rampant disregard for the inconsistently applied prohibitive laws and, most seriously in my view, the maintenance of a violent domestic and international criminal conspiracy under-girding its distribution) than making it a taxed legal commodity for adult consumption. And if we want to tax it to the point that it discourages use, as we have done to varying degrees for alcohol and tobacco, I’m willing to go for that, too.
I don’t buy that legalizing it is going to help much with controlling its use. The legalized efforts all limit the amount of pot someone can buy.
Black markets will always exist in such situations and if someone can by more on the street corner – they will.
@Barry
If a heavy duty pot smoker like Barack Obama was able to become President, is it really that much of a problem?
We were having a discussion with some friends recently about the middle school and high school teachers we had back in the 70’s who were almost certainly smoking pot outside of school on a regular basis. It goes on every day in every occupation… teachers, cops, politicians, doctors, nurses,.. why pretend you can stop it and why pretend that it’s impacting society?
Heavy duty?
Barry was reported to be very Spicoli like in his high school daze.
Well, he must have had plenty of brain to spare
In Hawaii in the 70s, no one would have noticed. Burl will back me up on this. He was there, too…
I didn’t smoke, myself, but I was often the only person present who didn’t. Thing is, everybody was so cool about it, that didn’t make them paranoid. Whether you smoked or not bore as much significance as whether you chewed gum or not…
“Well, he must have had plenty of brain to spare.”
Objection. Assuming facts not in evidence, your honor.
“If a heavy duty pot smoker like Barack Obama was able to become President, is it really that much of a problem?”
That explains a lot for me personally.
I think it’s a bigger problem than you suggest. But I kow the popular thing now is to just chalk it up to “no big deal.”
Not just now… the use of pot has probably been very consistent over the past few decades. It’s no worse than alcohol… in fact, you hear about too many acts of violence occurring under the influence of dope.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t taking a position on legalization of drugs. Just pointing out that there are costs and benefits on each side.
Not to mention the high cost to society of jailing people for minor pot offenses. Unless, of course, you’re in the for-profit prison industry.
Many if not most of the Columbian and Guatemalian kids being sent to our border are escaping drug execution.
You nailed it, Burl. Incarceration is a HUGE money making operation for the government and those private companies with government contracts.
If you haven’t stolen something or committed a violent act, you don’t belong in prison.
To Dave Crockett’s point on “inconsistently applied prohibitive laws”, the incarceration rate for African American males for drug offenses are ridiculously skewed compared to their Caucasian counterparts given roughly equivalent patterns of use. From our friends at the NAACP:
Drug Sentencing Disparities
• About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
• 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
• African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
• African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)
We are gutting a whole generation of young African American men for what amounts to a non-violent crime. Doesn’t sound like a sound “Communitarian” type of policy to me, Brad.
The costs of keeping pot, a relatively mild, natural drug, are pretty staggering. Lives are destroyed by sending otherwise decent, hard working people to jail for long periods of time. The incarceration probably turns many into hardened, violent criminals. Tax dollars squandered on prisons and law enforcement could be better spent on road repairs or schools.
The benefits are few. Pot has about as much impairment effect as strong coffee, certainly far less than alcohol or prescription drugs. There are few links to cancer or other long-term diseases. The benefits of marijuana are becoming better known every day with benefits for cancer patients, glaucoma and chronic seizure conditions. The states that have some sort of legalization have lower crime rates and lower accidental death rates than states that continue to fully enforce illegality.
Folks this is a simple issue. For adults this tame plant should be legalized for home or other private property situations. Smoking it should not be allowed in the same way we ban tobacco products that are a known public nuisance. It should also be prohibited in driving and heavy machinery operations. Perhaps some concession could be made for public edible marijuana in much the same way we allow coffee and alcoholic beverages.
Perhaps unknown impacts will turn up but I feel the risk is small. In a state that claims to want to keep government out of our lives the continued marijuana laws underscore just how hypocritical our conservative brand of governance we’ve adopted really is. Let’s walk the talk and embrace the freedom to choose what we can ingest. We’ll be better off as a state for it.
Pot has progressively grown stronger over the years. My younger brother who was not a smoker, was always in good health, and took good care of his body with one exception. He has been or was a pot smoker for over 20 years. He was diagnosed last year with severe COPD and the cause is directly related to smoking pot according to his doctor. His lung x-rays showed extensive damage. When I asked him about pot and if it was stronger than when he first started, his answer was a definitive yes. As he so eloquently stated, many strains of pot sold today will literally knock you on your ass after one puff. When he first started, one joint wouldn’t do much more than give him a slight buzz.
Now, if my brother’s pulse rate goes over 110, he has to use an inhaler immediately.
We grew up when smoking was a generally accepted thing to do in social circles. Our parents smoked but never to the extent of more than maybe a pack a day between the two and they stopped smoking when he was a child. Neither one of us grew up in a cigarette smoked filled environment.
To each his own and legalization of pot is inevitable but along with the legalization will be the same if not even greater problems we are now facing with smoking cigarettes and other tobacco products. Smoking tobacco products as a general rule does not affect one’s mental abilities or reaction times, smoking pot does.
Medical uses for marijuana is another subject altogether and there is no legitimate excuse or reason it should not be available to anyone who can benefit from it, especially cancer patients. When my mother died from cancer, at the end, she would have preferred medical marijuana over the hard narcotics she had to take intravenously just to abate pain and nausea. It was her fear she would die addicted to morphine.
To your claim that pot is relatively harmless for public use, I say BS! It is no different than inhaling the smoke from a cigarette, it will leave harmful particles behind in your lungs. Smoke is made up of physical properties and when the body ingests a physical property, remnants will remain.
If the pot is stronger, then you’d have to inhale less of it to get the buzz.
To counter your anecdote, I have a relative who has smoked pot every day for 35 years. He is in better shape physically than 95% of people 50 years old. Climbs mountains, runs marathons, competes in snowshoe races. A lot of cancer risk is genetic.
People are going to do it whether it is illegal or not. Legalize it, tax it, educate people on the possible risks, and let them decide. Don’t put them in jail or tarnish their reputations for ingesting smoke from a plant.
COPD is probably exacerbated by the lack of a filter on simple joints.
But yes, inhaling particulates of any sort is bad for the lungs! Coal dust, silica, cotton dust…..
The benefits are many …
If the pot is stronger, then you’d have to inhale less of it to get the buzz.
To counter your anecdote, I have a relative who has smoked pot every day for 35 years. He is in better shape physically than 95% of people 50 years old. Climbs mountains, runs marathons, competes in snowshoe races. A lot of cancer risk is genetic.
People are going to do it whether it is illegal or not. Legalize it, tax it, educate people on the possible risks, and let them decide. Don’t put them in jail or tarnish their reputations for ingesting smoke from a plant.
A lot more cancer, etc. is genetic.
Moderation in all things… Smoking pot to catch a buzz every day has to be as bad for someone as drinking every day to catch a buzz – and probably therefore just as elusive.
But the genes get switched on by environmental and lifestyle factors.
Alcohol is also carcinogenic. Breast cancer, for one, as well as throat, esophageal….it does have a positive cardiovascular effect, in moderation, though. Maybe weed does, too. Relaxation?
I meant to say environmental to the cancer risk.
The problem with tobacco second hand smoke isn’t the tobacco, it’s the chemicals in it.
It now appears that third-hand smoke, the stuff that clings long after the smoke has dissipated, is significant, too.
Geez.. I hope I never get old enough to spend my time worrying about all the things in the world that might kill me.
Enjoy yourself. Go places. Laugh.
Who says we’re worrying? I am merely recounting facts. Imma go fix me a martini now!
It’s not the worrying- it’s spending your last months (or years like my wife’s grandfather) years trying like heck to grab a satisfying breath of air – and not being able to
yeah, heckuva way to go. Slowly suffocating….
As far as the health effects of smoke, I expect Brad shares my discomfort around smoke, because it burns my eyes and throat, etc., plus he has asthma, far more than either of us worry about increasing our cancer risk.
Same here
Can’t stand the stinking stench of smoke. Makes your hair, clothes, furniture stink.
I prefer the smell of 10 wet dogs to any smoke coming off of a cancer stick or anything else.
I prefer the smell of 10 Weimaraner puppies farting….
I was going to say something similiar- but – well – you said it well.
The smell of farts is supposed to fight cancer. If our Henry doesn’t get a better digestive system, at least we’ll be healthier
Yeah, I worried about what smoke — any smoke — can do to me RIGHT NOW, not 30 years in the future.
I consider smoking in my presence to be a deliberate physical assault. I’d just as soon get punched in the face — especially now that my rugged perfection has been marred anyway…
A Canadian Center on Substance Abuse study on cannabis had the following information on exposure of second hand cannabis smoke.
“The implications of this survey, for the risks of secondhand marijuana smoke are that a considerable number of people in Canada, who do not smoke cannabis could be at risk of adverse effects due to inhaling secondhand marijuana smoke.
The article summarizes findings that have been made, linking chronic cannabis use to adverse outcomes in cognitive function, and mental health, cannabis risks of driving, and cannabis use by pregnant and nursing mothers.
Is cannabis smoke harmful?
According to research by CAMH (Center for Addiction and Mental Health), cannabis smoke contains more tar and toxic substances than tobacco smoke.
There are over 400 chemicals in marijuana. Cannabis toxicity is exacerbated when marijuana smokers inhale deeply and hold the smoke in their lungs, for a longer time than tobacco users.”
For the record, I am a former smoker who put cigarettes down in 1994 and have not smoked a cigarette or any other substance since then except for smoking a chicken or rack of ribs on my grill. If I could do anything over, at the top of the list would be to refuse to try my first cigarette.
If smoking pot is your thing, please, by all means, “smoke’m if you got’m”.
Just don’t try to justify pot smoking by saying it is harmless or just as harmless as drinking coffee. Please, don’t be insulting by making ludicrous claims that pot smoking and second hand pot smoke is not harmful.
Bart- good info
but making ludicrous claims about pot not being any big deal is big business these days- and of course there are some that smoke it now -that won’t admit it – but will push it’s “benefits” and downplay” everything else.
They are just like lobbysists. In fact, they are.
Who are these people who smoke it but won’t admit it?
Oh – various folks that talk very positively about pot- and spend just a little too much time talking about all the benefits- and how it doesn’t hurt anyone- and on and on and on
they aren’t doing that based on reading about it in a magazine.
I fall into that category and I have never smoked pot in my life. Not once. But I have seen enough people use it on a regular basis since high school who have not turned into “Reefer Madness” dope fiends to know its not a big deal.
It’s relatively harmless compared to alcohol or many prescription medicines (pain killers, sleep aids like Ambien, Adderal, Ritalin).
Smoking a plant should not be worthy of any punishment aside from the health risks associated with the smoke.
edit – lobbyists
Another harmful side effect of second-hand pot smoke — it is detectable in drug tests for weeks, sometimes months. You can walk through a room where someone is smoking pot, not touch it yourself, and yet test positive. Airline pilots are terrified of pot for that reason.
True – and a lot of companies are doing testing these days- and I predict more will be doing it soon enough.